Mental Skills Training

Mental Skills Training

Who am I?

My name is Alee Wade, and I'm a first year Masters student at Ball State studying Sport and Exercise Psychology. I ran track from middle school to college and am also a USATF Level 1 Certified Track coach who was an assistant coach for a boy's high school track for 4 seasons. I have recently received permission from the administrators at Burris and Teacher's College to work on mental skill training with your child's team.

As part of the Sport Psychology curriculum at BSU, students in the program are expected to develop a working relationship with an athletic team in the community. Throughout the process, she will be supervised throughout this process by Dr. Lindsey Blom (lcblom@bsu.edu). Dr. Blom is a professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology and a certified consultant with the Association of Applied Sport Psychology.

What is Sport Psychology?

Applied sport psychology is the study and use of psychological concepts of human performance in order to help athletes regularly perform at their best and enjoy the sport performance process.

What would the team sessions look like?

Because of the time left in the season and school year, I will not be running as many sessions as I had previously hoped. These next few weeks of sessions will include the following topics:

Doing team building activities to increase the cohesion on the team

Helping athletes understand the concept of emotional control and activation prior to races (over-activation= being too excited/nervous; under-activation= lack of concern about performance/low energy) and teaching them skills to help them reach achieve optimal activation

Imagery to help athletes picture a successful upcoming performance

Concentration strategies to assist with focus

These will not be individual sessions. I will discuss these topics in a group/team setting. Individual consultations can be available per an email request (akwade@bsu.edu).